The Dark Art

Did any economic analyst anywhere predict the Cyprus crisis?  Remember PIGS?  STUPID?   No Cs in those acronyms.

Just like they only foresaw 2008 in 2009, and only predicted austerity would fail after it had failed, they completely missed the current crisis.  Dicks.

You'd be as well listening to me for all the relevance the witterings of economists have.

Random quote of the day

Only, it isn't random, as the recent convulsions of the British banking sector, and the continual agonies of the Eurozone put me in mind of it, and it isn't of the day as it is ... this month's only post on lefthandpalm, thus far.

"The clouds gathering over the money market are sombre indeed ... It almost looks as though the storm is about to break, but this might, of course, be no more than a prelude ... When the crash comes, however, there'll be a rude awakening for the English. I should like to know how many of the Continent’s speculative shares have found their way to England — vast numbers, I imagine. This time there'll be a dies irae such as has never been seen before; the whole of Europe’s industry in ruins, all markets over-stocked (already nothing more is being shipped to India), all the propertied classes in the soup, complete bankruptcy of the bourgeoisie, war and profligacy to the nth degree.

Engels, in a letter to Marx, in the 1850s.

I was, of course, completely right - "Murdochs should FOAD," say shareholders

... Some of them, at any rate (1).

Obviously, a good thing. The media world will be far better without the malignant influence of the Murdoch's, though it is likely more Cthulhoid horrors will simply arise in their place, unless Something Is Done to limit ownership of the media.

And, in fairness, while it is edifying to watch the Murdoch's being eviserated in slow motion, it is also a distraction from the reality that they're only one part of a decadent, corrupt and self serving media establishment. Slaying News International should only be a start to the process of ethical cleansing in the media - but it will probably be the end.

To wax French for a moment, should we regard the media as something akin to the means of production? They do not produce value, true, but they do produce meaning and consciousness. And producing consciousness helps create consciousness. Media companies and institutions are sites of hegemonic control, and of hegemonic dispute. They can either be reactionary, or progressive, or (most liekly) both at once. Obviously, no-one wants Pravda and Tass, but equally, we need more than The Sun and Fox News.

We aren't well served by the media in all manner of ways, because we've created a media than finds it is in its interests to work against our interests.

Something needs to be changed.

But nothing will be, most likely.

1 - "Rupert and James Murdoch should leave News Corp board, claims US shareholder advisory group," by Richard Blackden. Published in The Telegraph, 10th of October, 2011. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/media/8818903/Rupert-and-James-Murdoch-should-leave-News-Corp-board-claims-US-shareholder-advisory-group.html)

News Corp RIP?

The Wisdom of Crowds is starting to suggest it is All Up for Rupert Murdoch (1).

This is something of a massive hostage to fortune, but I suspect there won't be a News Corp in a couple of years time.

If Murdoch stays, it will destroy the brand. If he goes, it will destroy the brand.

If the name does survive, it will be for a much reduced rump of companies, with most of the holdings sold off, and no-one called Murdoch anywhere near the levers of power - though possibly still clinging onto the levers of profit.

1 - "News Corp shares fall as pressure grows," unattributed article. Published by the BBC, 18th of July, 2011. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14181119)

The Hillside proposition

Does the announcement that Hillside Engineering will be laying off staff, following the loss of yet another contract overseas, mean it is of it time to consider a New Zealand version of Harman's Law (1)?

Harman's Law was a proposal by the last Labour government in Britain, requiring public bodies to work towards reducing economic inequality (2). It was facetiously dubbed "Socialism in a single clause," which might be going a bit far, but it is hard to see how it is a bad thing that local authorities should be asked to think of more than just the economic bottom line in their decision making.

There are social and environmental considerations as well. Social, because it's a social good to protect workers and jobs - ideas, I admit, that may be a bit strange to John Key - and the communities that they belong to. As a Scot, I know what happened to the working class communities of the Glasgow-Clydeside conurbation, once the shipyards started closing, and the mining communities when the pits were closed. The same things happened in New Zealand in the 80-s and 90s, but it seems John Key thinks enough damage was not done.

And there are surely environmental considerations as well. I don't think it can be possible to make rolling stock in China at less of an environmental cost than in New Zealand. True, shipping manufacturing - and thus emissions - to China is an established way that the West look less environmentally irresponsible than they really are. But environmental pollution is something that catches up with all of us. Our power and our practices must be less polluting than the Chinese alternative. That should be a consideration as well.

There's a moral dimension as well, since the PRC isn't renowned for its regard for human rights. But I don't suppose Phil Goff will have the chutzpah to argue that line, given it was he who signed off the infamous Free Trade Deal with the bastards of Beijing (3).

Finally, I'm not even sure there's an economic case to be made for sending manufacturing work overseas. After all, if we send $500 million of work to China, that's $500 million dollars vanished forever. If we spend it here, even if it is somewhat more expensive, the money is recycled through local businesses and communities. It goes to New Zealanders, and is spent again and again in New Zealand. I'm guessing there won't be much money being spent Hillside way any time soon.

So it is time for The Hillside Proposition? A statutory requirement that public entities and money is spent with a triple - or even quadruple - bottom line, where economic, social, environmental and moral considerations are weighed up?

1 - "Hillside's 'kick in the guts' ," by Matthew Haggart. Published in The Otago Daily Times, 10th of June 2011. (http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/164215/hillsides-kick-guts)
2 - As described previously on lefthandpalm: http://lefthandpalm.blogspot.com/2010/11/breaking-harmans-law.html
3 - As described previously on lefthandpalm: http://lefthandpalm.blogspot.com/2008/02/new-zealand-secures-infamous-first-fta.html

John Key's pro slavery rebellion

I'll warrant John Key is not an assiduous reader of Karl Marx.

For all that, he seems to have an instinctive grasp of the wrong end of the Marxist stick. That is to say, he's a anti-Marxist, not in the sense he's opposed to Marx, but that he accepts the Marist model - perhaps unconsciously - but from the capitalist side of the Labour-Capital binary opposition. Even if he hasn't delved into the depths of Capital, Mr Key may be familiar with the opening lines of the Manifesto of the Communist Party:

The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.

Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes. (1)

Mr Key would immediately recognize that this is perfectly true; and that he is representative of the first party in each opposition - the freeman, the patrician, the lord and the guildmaster. In a word, the oppressors.

His latest pronouncements, on National's plans to further reduce the power of trade unions, are a typical part of the 'hidden fight' to reconstitute society not as the workers might want it, but as Mr Key and his ilk would rather have it (2).

In Capital, Marx describes how capitalist society is characterised by "a potracted and more or less concealed civil war between the capitalist class and the working class," which takes place in "the arena of modern industry" (3). Elsewhere, Marx referred to efforts to overturn the Acts as "a pro-slavery rebellion in miniature" (4).

Mr Key understands chipping away at worker's rights and trade union powers is very much for their own good. Like the factory owners Marx described, who claimed their workers sought to work long hours because they needed the money to relieve their debt and hardship. I almost expect him to crack his guileless, weak smile, and tell us, with an almost comically straight face, that all these advances in favour of the working man will hurt him more than it hurts us. I'll bet it does, John. I can see that pain etched in your face.

Marx, in 1867, was writing about the campaigns either for or against a limit to the working day of the English working class; a succession of Factory Acts had limited the hours worked by women and children. Mr Key is probably doesn't want to see children working 15 hour days, but he does want the work force to be more "flexible," in the hope of encouraging growth and jobs (5). He does want to see the inconvenient, hard won rights of workers diminished, and workers put firmly in their place, subordinate to capital. His finance minister thinks this would be an advantage to us (6). Well, to him, and his people, perhaps.

And, of course, John Key would love to see wages drop (7).

Is this Victorian attitude towards labour really the sort of person we want leading New Zealand in the 21st century?

1 - "Manifesto of the Communist Party," by Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels. Published in 1848. From the 1888 translation by Samuel Moore and Engels. The quoted passage occurs at the very start of the very first chapter, 'Bourgeois and Proletarians.' IT is reproduced on Marxists.org. (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch01.htm#007)
2 - "Labour law changes a campaign plank, says Key," by Claire Trevett. Published in The New Zealand Herald, 9th of June, 2011. (http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10731097)
3 - "Capital, volume 1," by Karl Marx, originally published in 1868. The quotation occurs in Chapter 10.7, "The Working Day: The Struggle for the Normal Working-Day. Reaction of the English Factory Acts on Other Countries." This quotation is from my copy of Capital, translated by Ben Fowkes. Marxists.org reproduces a slighly different wording (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch10.htm#S7)
4 - ibid. Marx used the term "pro-slavery rebellion" to describe the American Civil War, and was fond of using it to characterise moves against social reform.
5 - Trevett, op cit.
6 - "Bill English: NZ's low wages an 'advantage'," unattributed article. Published by RadioLIVE / 3 News, 11th of April, 2011. (http://www.3news.co.nz/Bill-English-NZs-low-wages-an-advantage/tabid/419/articleID/206359/Default.aspx)
7 - "Key “would love to see wages drop”," unattributed press release. Published by The New Zealand government, 19th of February, 2008. (http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA0802/S00304.htm)

Save the children!

I'm not quite sure where I stand, with regards David Cameron's latest crusade to save the children of Britain from their feckless parents who might otherwise dress them up in padded bras at age six, and feed them, exclusively, on MacDonalds (1).

Obviously, there's an element of hysteria, 'Dangerous Dogs Act' type Being Seen To Do Something, even if it is a complete over-reaction, and ushering in incompetent legislation that will outlaw pre-teens wearing anything short of a Burqua. Also, I'm uncomfortable with the state telling people what they can and can't dress their children in. Fuck's sake, if it gets own to this level of nanny statism, perhaps parenting licenses and testing is the way to go. Surely that would be more efficient, effective, and logical than trying to legislate competence into the hopelessly useless.

On the otherhand, i am deeply uncomfortable about the way children are being targeted by companies who only see them as a market for product, and have no scruples about exploiting children's intrinsic insecurities, uncertainties, needs and desires. Capitalism isn't interested in children, capitalism isn't interested in innocent children playing with sticks and mud. It's interested in exploitable non-adult consumers.

(Of course, we should be glad that capitalism is only exploiting our children as consumers, and not as producers, as happens in other parts of the world, for our benefit.)

I have no problem with little girls dressing up in mum's high heels and trying on mum's make up. I have no problem with little boys doing it either. I have, however, problems with children being purposefully marketed to with products that are intended to make them appear more adult; carry suggestive slogans; exploit their vulnerabilities and insecurities; that encourage unhealthy habits and and reduce active 'learning' play and imagination; that will make them unhealthy and will accustom them to food loaded with sugar, salt and dubious additives.

While only a fool would ever be happy with their parenting, I'm no more than necessarily distressed with mine. There are lots of kids out there, however, who don't enjoy even the rudimentary level of parenting I strive for, whose parents actually feed them at MacDonalds 5 times a week, dress their six year olds up in tee shirts proclaiming them to be 'Junior Porn Stars' and so on. As I pointed out in my first post in this thread, I'm worried either way, because legislating against shite parenting is about as doubtful a prospect as standing about and doing nothing while big business converts childhood into one massive consumerist trip.

1 - "Cameron-backed report to protect children from commercialisation," by Patrick Wintour. Published in The Guardian, 3rd of June, 2011. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/jun/03/cameron-backed-report-commercialisation-childhood)

Explosion at Foxconn plant

From the Guardian:

A spokesman for the company said people had been injured in a fire at the plant but that it had no details. The company is best-known for producing iPhones and iPads for Apple, but other clients include Nokia, Motorola, Hewlett-Packard and Dell. Employing up to 900,000 people in all, Foxconn has repeatedly been the subject of controversy over working conditions at its vast plants. The affected one is believed to employ up to 100,000 people.

A report on Chinese news portal Sina said the area had been sealed off after a blast ripped through the plant at around the time workers changed shifts. Police in Gaoxin district said they were called to the scene at 7.18pm and that the explosion seemed to have been caused by materials within the factory. A report on the China National Radio website said two were killed and 16 injured, three seriously. (1)

This is just another tragedy resulting from our hypocritical exploitation of the PRC's laissez faire attitude towards worker's rights, wages, representation and safety.

Foreign companies setting up in China should be required - or, better yet, insist on - basic standards of decency, in terms of wages, worker conditions and union recognition. We insist on these things for ourselves, it's absurd that we're happy to ignore them when it comes to the Chinese labour that makes the stuff that lets us enjoy a preposterous standard of living.

Of course, the whole thing's a shoddy trick to get us thinking we've still got it good based on cheap imports and never mind we've got no jobs, so perhaps I'm the one who is absurd for even making the point.

Liberty, equality and fraternity, or cheap vanity-baubles made by Morlock labour in China, who occasionally get blown up? Workers of all lands unite? Or workers of the developed world live like kings on the backs of the third world? It wasn't much of a contest.

1 - "Workers killed in blast at China plant of iPad maker Foxconn," by Tania Brannigan. Published in The guardian, 20th of May, 2011. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/may/20/foxconn-apple-blast-china)

Stray thoughts on Milton Friedman

Milton Friedman rather liked the freemarket, so it's a same that he isn't around to see how it has all gone tits up in the years immediately after his demise. Of course, he would have claimed it was nothing to do with the free market and everything to do with 'distortions' caused by unwise meddling in the 'perfect' mechanism of the market. Blame rests with well meaning or cynical politicians, who attempt to control the market or protect the weak and powerless from its more deleterious effects.

Well, quite.

The problems we've seem recently don't lie in the 'distortion' of the market. As I pointed out the other day, the 'distorted' market worked quite well for about 70 years, and blew itself to smithereens in a little over 7 years. The problem is far more fundamental than that, and an irreconcilable (to my - doubtless distorted - mind) contradiction in Freidman's thought.

Friedman almost put his finger on the problem back in 1975, in a letter to General Pinochet: "The major error [was] to believe that it is possible to do good with other people`s money." (1)

Friedman didn't expand this point any further, perhaps because he didn't like the developed implications. Because modern capitalism depends on using other people's money, not their own, through stock ownership. Hence the catastrophe of 2008, where people were happy to recklessly use other people's money into dubious schemes, leading to collapse.

This isn't my own idea, of course. Friedman would have been familiar with the works of Adam Smith, so surely he would have known Smith's opinions on 'joint stock' companies:

... being the managers of other people's money than their own, it can not well be expected that they should watch over it with the same anxious vigilance with which the partners in a private copartnery frequently watch over their own. (2)

Yet he seems to have made a magnificent effort to ignore this in his own economic programs.

It isn't just unwise to attempt to do good with other people's money. Even just trying to make even more money out of it is a dubious project, in the eyes of Mr Smith. Only someone who actually owns the money is likely to minister to its needs with due attention.

Hence, our recent economic history.

1 - From a letter written by Milton Friedman,to Augusto Pinochet, dated 21st of April, 1975.
2 - From An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations, Volume III, by Adam Smith.

Idiots in glass houses should not throw empty insults

THis was submitted to the Dominion Post in response to a letter published in that paper; since I've had no response from them, I'm assuming they don't intend to publish it in either extended or condensed form submitted. Since it was fun to fulminate, I reproduce it here. Who needs a readership, anyway?

It was amusing to read Leith Gunn's letter of the 2nd of March, 2011,titled "Populist governments are to blame " on the alleged "inane diatribe" of one Greg Edwards, identified by Mr Gunn as a "naive, left-leaning statist." (1)

It is a rule that any country styling itself as "Democratic" can only be a totalitarian Hell hole; similarly, we can be sure any writer accusing another of producing an "inane diatribe" will go on to do precisely that.

Leith Gunn does not disappoint.

He points the finger - with justification - at the actions of the American government in the 90s, particularly the repeal (masterminded by the Republicans Phil Gramm, Thomas Leach and Jim Bliley in 1999) of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933.

He suggests - again with justification - that the removal of restrictions on the market brought about the financial catastrophe of 2008.

But in trying to pin the blame on "populist governments," and ""Political decisions, Left and Right," he makes a complete fool of himself.

And whatever else you can say about Gram, Leach and Bliley, they were not motivated by populism. Only a small percentage of their votes came from those who benefited from their legislative irresponsibility. Only a few benefited from it, after all.

I suspect, however, a considerable percentage of their campaign funding came from these sources.

He also overlooks the fact that the the system worked for seven decades, then within seven years of the controls being removed, the 'invisible hand' of the free market lead us to disaster.

In other words, it wasn't actually the actions of any "naive, Left-leaning statist" that brought the roof down, but the actions of naive, rightwing free marketeers.

So, we really need these "statist" controls to stop markets from eating themselves alive. Mr Gunn tries to duck this issue by claiming, "Political decisions, Left and Right, are where the problem lies" and babbling about fiat money.

No, old chap, the fixes and controls put in place by the leftish politics of the New Deal era, after one free market induced disaster, kept things ticking over quiet nicely for decades. With those controls were removed, it took just nine years for the free market to go all to
Hell.

Again.

1 - "Populist governments are to blame," a Letter to the Editor, by Leith Gunn. Published in the Dominion Post, 2nd of March, 2011. (http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/4720817/Letter-Populist-governments-are-to-blame)

Frailty, thy name is Moody's

They're never happy, these ratings agencies, are they. They threaten you with a credit down grade if you don't slash public spending. And when you do, this happens:

Ireland's credit rating has been slashed by five notches by Moody's, which also warned that the country faced an increasingly uncertain economic future.

Moody's said that the cost of rescuing Ireland's banking sector meant Irish debt was now significantly riskier. It also expressed concern that the deep austerity cuts due over the next four years will hurt domestic demand. The agency maintained a "negative" outlook on Ireland, and said that further downgrades are possible in the future. (1)

Do what they say, or they'll downgrade you. Do as they say, and they downgrade you. Seems to me, if they ain't got you one way ...

1 - "Ireland's credit rating slashed five notches," by Graeme Wearden. Published in The Guardian, 17th of December, 2010. (http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=507659435767768133)

Breaking Harman's Law

The telegraph has reported that Theresa May will announce the dumping of the clause - the so-called Harman's Law - that required public bodies to work towards reducing economic inequality:

Theresa May, the Home Secretary, will say today that the Government is axing the measure, which had been dubbed “socialism in one clause”.

A ‘socio-economic duty’ on public bodies was written into the Equality Act by the then-Equalities minister Harriet Harman earlier this year.

However the duty – dubbed “Harman’s Law” - was never enacted, and the Coalition had been reviewing the measure.

Ministers have now decided not to enact it and will look at ways to repeal the measure. (1)

I'm struggling to see what was so terrible about 'Harman's Law,' to be honest:

Education authorities would have had to encourage parents from poor backgrounds to apply for successful schools in their area.

Regional development agencies could also have changed criteria for grants so that bids from deprived areas were more likely to succeed. Health bodies would have had to spend some of their budget in areas with the worse health records.

Mrs May will warn that the measure could have meant public spending was “permanently” focused on deprived parts of the country.

I mean, fuck me, money being spent where it was needed and people being encouraged to aim high for their kids. Shocking stuff. Revolutionary. No wonder the we're going to Hell in a handcart.

Up goes the predictable response that this is the "Nanny state" at its worst, a phrase which has achieved the tiredness of "Political correctness" in record time. Both are trite shibboleths lobbed from the right at anything the lobber don't like to curtail the need for further argument or - heavens! - any further thinking on an issue.

Ne'er-the-less the underlying problems would appear to exist, not matter how the Mail or the Telegraph bay. Empty blather doesn't make problems go away.

Most opposition comes from a sort of reversed sense of grievance, the increasingly shrill squealing of the whiny aspirant middle-classes, who protest at the state spending THEIR taxes on the great unwashed herd of stinking proles and sub-proles while the while affluent areas simply have to stump up more and more and get nothing in return. Really? Apart from the obvious and concrete returns that more affluent areas get from the public purse, there are the (possibly more important) social benefits from targeting limited funds where they're needed.

May's claims about 'Harman's law' is just talking hysterical flap, a tabloid tinged bullcrapfest.

As for the wider points raised - the issues that prompted the law to be drafted in the first place - they haven't gone away. 'Harman's Law' was never intended to "solve a problem as complex as inequality in one legal clause" as May is quoted. It was intended to write into law the social obligation of public bodies, which is sane and sensible. Isn't that rather the point of public bodies?

If they're prime motivation is going to be economic, then why are they public institutions? They could be privatised and left to get on with it. In fact, if the state isn't going to concern itself with issues beyond the mere accruing of profits, why not privatise the whole state? We could all have a share, and instead of elections we could have AGMs where the new CEO could be chosen and a board elected.

I suspect the real reason for dumping Harman's Law is pragamtic - the years to come are going to see a lot of inequality, an d a lot of it will be driven by political ideology and laws emanating from the office currently heald by Ms May. The government, I suspect, is seeking to free itself from a tricky legal encumberance before it gets down to the real work in hand.

1 - "Theresa May axes Harman's Law," BY Christopher Hope. Published in The Telegraph, 17th of Novemeber, 2010. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/labour/8138053/Theresa-May-axes-Harmans-Law.html)

The real cost of cheap consumer goods

From the BBC:

At least 38 miners have been killed in three separate accidents in China's notoriously dangerous coal mines, according to state-run media.

Twenty eight people died after an electrical cable caught fire inside the Xiaonangou mine in Shaanxi province, the Xinhua news agency reports.

Police have arrested the mine's owner.

Eight miners died in an accident in Henan province, while two others were killed in Hunan, Xinhua says.

Thirteen miners remain trapped underground in a separate incident in Gansu province in the north west.

Rescuers retrieved five bodies from the Shaanxi mine on Sunday morning, Xinhua said.

An investigation is currently under way.

China's vast coal mining industry is considered one of the most dangerous in the world.

According to official figures, 2,631 coal miners died in 1,616 mine accidents in China in 2009, down 18% from the previous year.

The country gets more than two-thirds of its electricity from coal.

Most accidents are blamed on failures to follow safety rules, including a lack of required ventilation or fire control equipment.

But independent labour groups say the figure could be much higher, as accidents are covered up to prevent mine closures. (1)

A mining industry with few - and slackly enforced - safety standards literally fuels Chinese manufacturing, and puts cheap consumer goods in the shops for us to enjoy. Every time we buy something made in China, we're reinforcing the pattern of exploitation and industrial murder.

On top of that, of course, you've got the environmental impact of Chinese coal driven industrialization - CO2 emissions and the general pollution resulting from industrialization.

Western nations could change this, as China is reliant on us as we are on it - unless the economy can keep growing, the country will go bust. But it seems we prefer the shop shelves full of baubles and don't want to worry too much about where it came from or how it was made.

The west went through a similar development about 150 years ago - nowadays we call it the industrial Revolution and celebrate it as the Great leap Forwards for civilization, cheerfully forgetting the incalculable suffering, injury and death that made the revolution. Apologists argue that China is going through the same process, and should be allowed to imitate each stage. But, to paraphrase Santayana, we know our history, so other people don't need to repeat it.

And there is a compelling practical argument if the airy-fairy moral stuff doesn't do it for you. There are 1.3 billion souls in China. If they do follow the European coal and oil based model of industrialization, then we;re all screwed. China is already the world's biggest gross emitter of CO2 - never mind all the other pollutants - and that's with a predominantly rural population with a low carbon footprint. But as each individual' footprint gets bigger, the imapct on the planet will be immense.

I don't want the Chinese to live in the stone age. But I don't want everyone living in the stone age, which is what will happen if China is allowed to develop unchecked.

All these baubles that seem such a bargain just now really might end up costing us the Earth.

1 - "China coal mine accidents 'kill at least 38', trap more," unattributed BBC report. 18th of July, 2010. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-10675363)

Rotten Apple

So the iPhone 4 is a load of old balls that is so temperamental it needs a special coat before you can use it reliably? Apple selling hyped up stuff that looks neat but doesn't meet expectations? Who'd have thunk it?

Serious question - why are people who buy Apple tech so often fanatic, wild eyed obsessives?

Apple is just another tech company. Steve Wozniak made a great computer back in the 70s (the Apple II) the company managed to produce a great computer, albeit with a near fatal flaw in the 80s (the Mac), but their history is littered with failures and misfires, like the Apple III and the Lisa, which were hyped beyond human comprehension but failed to deliver. The iMac was a gimmick. The iPod was a fricking MP3 player, why is it an object of fascination? Now the iphone over promises and under-delivers.

Apple consumers like to think of themselves as blessed with a special discernment that allows them to see the special 'quality' that makes Apple products better than the run-of-the-mill tat the rest of us put up with. The opposite is actually true - they're labouring under a whole extra misapprehension, specially reserved for Apple users. In fact, they're just magpies on autopilot, grabbing every shiny bauble Steve Jobs excretes in their direction.

What's even more annoying is the tacit assumption among Apple users is that their baubles aren't just technologically superior (the aren't) and inherently cooler (only to deluded poseurs), but somehow imbued with a special moral quality. The idea is that Apple is the plucky little band of techie heroes gallantly resisting the tide of grayish conformity. Bollocks. there's nothing more conformist than listening to Apple fanatics drone on about how wonderful their toys are, and by implication how great they are. Apple is no different from any other company. They deliever gloss to fulfill needs and desires we don't really have, so we can feel good and successful and sexy with out shiny new toys.

But beneath the Apple gloss, their products aren't much different from anything else out there. They are manufactured in the same places by the same exploited workers, at the same cost to the environment. Steve Jobs is no better than Bill Gates.

Steve Jobs = Satan. The Iphone 4 = Satan's penis. You wouldn't want that anywhere near you mouth, would you?

1 - "Free cases likely for NZ iPhone buyers," unattributed article. Published by the New Zealand Herald, 19th of July, 2010. (http://www.nzherald.co.nz/connect/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501833&objectid=10659712)

Turning from red to blue

Dr James Rockey, of Leicester University, analysed the stated values of 136,000 people in a survey carried out in 48 countries, and found that the well-educated were most likely to misplace themselves on the political spectrum.

A tendency was observed among this group to identify as left-wing, and vote accordingly, despite holding views on wealth distribution that placed them further to the right, Dr Rockey reported.

In his paper, Dr Rockey suggested that this was due to the fact that "people compare themselves not to the population as a whole but to the people they know" and that "political preferences change over time".

The Daily Telegraph pounced on these findings, proclaiming them as evidence that "many middle-aged 'champagne socialists' fail to notice their views shifting" and have become, despite their left-wing university days, right-wingers who cannot bring themselves to acknowledge the fact. (1)

I think this (or at least the Telegraph's reaction to it) is a variation on the "Anyone who isn't a socialist at 20 hasn't a heart, anyone who is a socialist at 40 hasn't a head" bollocks that gets reprised every now and again (1). This is usually done either by people who have made that journey themselves and are trying to justify the collapse of their principles, or by people who were never there in the first place, but who are trying to belittle an opponent in argument by writing off whatever they are saying as youthful naivety.

I wonder, cynically, how many of the journalists at the Telegraph started out as wild eyed young Trots, only to mellow into reactionary prigs, round about the time they accepted the 30 pieces of silver offered by the Barclay brothers?

I wonder, more constructively, if there has been any study of people who preach individualism / Social Darwinist / Libertarian / Randite dogma, to see if they also fail to measure up to their avowed principles?

This could take a couple of forms. It might be the 'do as I say, not as I do' sort of hypocrisy which sees the supposedly capitalistic USA, home of the free livin' individualist, subsidize its agricultural sector to the point where grain can be sold profitably at below the cost of production, and massive government spending on defense buoys up the whole economy? Or, more honourably, some "I'm alright Jack" type giving money to charity or the needy.

Also, it is worth noting that there is nothing hypocritical in a socialist making money by using the tools of a capitalist system. First of all, that money can then be used to help advance the cause, and second, the whole point of a capitalist system is that it forces you to look out for yourself and your own - I need to have the means to care for my kith and kin, if I can't rely on the state to do it for me.

1 - "Are ageing lefties in denial?" by Jon Kelly. Published by BBC Online, 16th of July, 2010. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-10633782)

On the polical utility of debt and deficit

Debt and austerity seem to be the flavour of the month, at least among those getting to giving the cuts, thought it remains to be seen how long the enthusiasm will last among those receiving them.

i've just finished reading Martin Walker's biography of Bill Clinton, The President We Deserve. Early on, Walker notes that the fiscally constrained nature of the Clinton presidency was due to a deliberate - and breathtakingly cynical - strategy originating in the 1980s, when Reagan and his supply side wreckers went on their spree.

their economic decisions weren't driven by ‘positive’ ideological vision, that is a genuine – but deluded – conviction that supply side economics worked. Foisting a massive peace time debt on the public was a cynical, ‘negative’ ploy to stymie any plans the Democrats had:

Clinton came to office in 1993 to be caught by two deep fiscal traps, which made it almost impossible to finance the reform measures on which he had campaigned. The first, and underlying cause of his difficulties, had been set twelve years earlier, in the first year of the Reagan administration. Reagan’s budget director, David Stockman, set out deliberately to destroy the welfare state by plunging the budget into fiscal crisis. The strategy was for the White House to cut taxes, and if the Democratic Congress would not then cut spending, the result would be a mounting deficit that would in the long run constrain any more growth in public spending and eventually force spending cuts. Stockman was extraordinarily frank about this: “The success of the Reagan revolution depended upon the willingness of the politicians to turn against their own handiwork – the bloated budget of the American welfare state. Why would they have to do this? because they had to! In the final analysis, I had made fiscal necessity the mother of political invention.

“It worked. In 1980, when Reagan was elected, the national debt was just over $1000 billion. Twelve years later, when Clinton entered the White House, it had ballooned to over $4000 billion, a debt on which interest had to be paid. In Clinton’s 1996 budget, $257 billion was allocated for interest, rather more than the entire U.S. defence budget of $247 billion for the year. The debt burden and the annual deficit had become precisely the fiscal restraint Stockman had planned, a straitjacket into which Clinton’s reform ambitions had to fit. (1)

Sorry if I’m teaching y’all to suck eggs here, but this was news to me. Before, I’d thought that the Reagan administration were just financial imbeciles who genuinely believed that cutting taxes while spunking money on Tanks In Space would somehow lead to everyone becoming billionaires. I didn’t realize it was actually a brilliant act of political castration, effectively neutering any future government’s reform agenda and forcing every president thereafter to become an administration, scraping up money to service Reagan’s debt, rather than actually using the power of the state to actually help people.

Compared to this sort of long sighted cunning, the current moves to hack up the institutions of social democracy in the name of austerity, seem almost naive.

1 - The President We Deserve, by Martin Walker. Published by Crown Publishers, Inc., New York, 1996.

Billy Bragg at Speaker's Corner

Mentioned on teh (sic) radio the other day, so I thought I'd check it out(1).



I've always admired Billy Bragg for the gusto that he set about pursuing a singing career even though he couldn't sing - not in a Tom Waitsy can't sing sort of way, but in a genuine can't sing sort of way - and because he's always been staunchly left.

This clip seems to be part of a longer sequence. Just as well he left the guitar behind, though.

1 - "Billy Bragg at Speaker's Corner," posted on You Tube by photoandpolitics, 10th of february, 2010. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMftdDvXWYk)

I was, of course, completely right - PRC accused of wrecking Copenhagen

The Independent has reported on how the PRC deliberately set out to wreck the Copenhagen cliamte summit, to protect its 'right' to pollute its way to developed status, and simultaneously duck having t commit to the same future requirements placed on developed nations:

... the key element of the agreement, a timetable for making its commitments legally binding by this time next year, was taken out at the last minute at the insistence of the Chinese, who otherwise would have refused to agree to the deal.

Also removed, at Chinese insistence, was a statement of a global goal to cut carbon emissions by 50 per cent by 2050, and for the developed world to cut its emissions by 80 per cent by the same date. The latter is regarded as essential if the world is to stay below the danger threshold of a two-degree Centigrade temperature rise.

The "50-50" and "50-80" goals have already been accepted by the G20 group of nations and world leaders who were negotiating the agreement, including Gordon Brown, Angela Merkel of Germany, Nicolas Sarkozy of France and Kevin Rudd of Australia. They were said to be amazed at the Chinese demands, especially over the developed nations' goal. The European official said: "China thinks that by 2050 it will be a developed country and they do not want to constrain their growth."

China, with its rapidly expanding economy, has now overtaken the US as the world's biggest CO2 emitter, and although at the meeting it agreed for first time to a target to constrain its emissions growth in an international instrument, it is desperate not to have that made legally binding, the official said. He added: "This conference has been systematically wrecked by the Chinese government, which has adopted tactics that were inexplicable at first as we had been led to believe they wanted an agreement." (1)

The motivation here being short term fear of social collapse if they don't keep growing their economy fast enough to maintain their legitimacy in the eyes of their population. And, because the west is dependent on the PRC's neo-slave labour to maintain its standard of living (also totally unsustainable, of course) our leaders caved in.

1 - "China stands accused or wrecking global deal," by Michael McCarthy, Rebecca Buchan and Claire Cooper, published in The Independent, 20th of December, 2009.(http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/china-stands-accused-of-wrecking-global-deal-1845911.html)

Copenhagen blues

Well, now that Copenhagen has ended with the Mother of All Whimpers and a lot of meaningless tattle andbout meaningful targets (1) why are we surrprised?

The stumbling block was, as always, the PRC, which needs to maintain a massive growth rate to avoid social collapse. Their growth rate in the last 12 months or so came down to about 8%, and that caused riots and demonstrations. They need to keep it well above that to continue to give the people the visible improvements in standard of living they need to keep them quiescent. And they don't think they can provide that if they can't continue to industrialise at top speed, with the consequent CO2 emmissions.

(And who is it that owns the majority of the USA's foreign debt ... hmmmmm (2))

Yet I am still surprised, and disappointed. In part, because this was so important. In part, because it has given the Swivel Eyed Denier Loons new reason to think they can win. In part, because I remember how Kyoto was saved at the final hour.

But Copenhagen's failure forces me to wonder, if our governments are failing us in the face of the biggest issue facing us, and are so obviously more responsive to the short term concerns of industry rather than the people, are we still obliged to follow our part of the social contract?

1 - "Copenhagen climate conference: the grim meaning of 'meaningful'," editorial published by The Guardian, 19th of December, 2009. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/dec/19/copenhagen-climate-change-conference-obama)
2 - As described previosuly on lefthandpalm: http://lefthandpalm.blogspot.com/2009/07/this-is-why-rebiya-kadeer-will-be.html

Reality check ...

Today, at Pak'n'Save, I treated Apprentice Demon 1 & 2 to a go on the kiddies' dragon ride in the store. Obviously, much fun was had, for the minute or so that the dragon gyrated, flashed and growled. While they were squealing with glee at this, it occurred to me that the $2 I paid to activate it was worth about US$1 - or, in other words, the amount of money that more than 1 billion people have to survive on (or not survive on), per day (1).

1 - 'A world mired in despair of poverty will not be a world at peace,' press
release from The United Nations, 10th of October, 2003. (http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2003/sgsm8935.doc.htm)